Aftermath
by Major Trouble
Summary: Even Trouble had never understood why. Now he's dealing with the aftermath. Oneshot I wrote as a bored soon-to-be-college-kid, open to more at author's discretion.


**Disclaimer: I own the narrator, but everything else belongs to Eoin Colfer. No copyright infringement intended.**

**_Aftermath_  
**

He walks into the cafeteria to a stunned silence. He _never_ eats in the cafeteria. But today day, for some reason, he decided to.

It's weird. I mean, _really_ weird. Ever since the whole thing with Opal Koboi, and all Koboi electronics exploding or whatever, he's be crazy busy with cleanup and rebuilding efforts. The Plaza alone was – is – trashed. Budget cuts – hadn't been able to completely phase out her gear. Not at all. It was terrible. No weapons, no shuttles, not much of anything. I still feel pretty helpless and I know most of the others do too.

So when Trouble Kelp, our Commander, walks in, everyone falls silent. He hesitates in that confident, even stride of his and looks around uncomfortably, then walks towards the salad, glancing over his shoulder from time to time as conversations start again. He's confused as to why his appearance had made every single one of us stop talking.

Truth be told, we pity him. Everyone, from the lowest recruit to me, one of his best friends. We all got to go home at the end of the day. In fact, he'd sent out a memo informing the entire force that we weren't _allowed_ to work overtime, because so many fairies were showing up exhausted from working extra the day before. I mean, it's a good idea. We'll get more work done if we're well rested. And our shifts are all spread out and rotate so sometimes we work in the day and other times through dinner, sometimes overnight, but we always had plenty of time to rest up before the next time. Of course, Trouble doesn't follow that instruction himself. When he does sleep, it's usually in his office chair. I'm not sure he's been back to his apartment for more than an hour or two at a time over the past few weeks, and I know most of his uniforms are in his office. He showers in the locker room and his meals, when he eats, are usually brought to him out in the city somewhere.

We all know he's been hit hard by this. It's not his fault, of course, but he's seen as the reason this all happened. Well, him and Holly Short. But he's the Commander of the Lower Elements Police, and so everyone blames him for not protecting us. But really it was the budget cuts that doomed us. Too much Koboi stuff we couldn't get rid of. If we had, we would've been fine. The city would be intact, and we'd be running strictly on Foaly's stuff. And he's not evil, so maybe that'd be a good idea? But not enough of one to get rid of Koboi's gear, apparently. Well, at least it's gone now. Maybe we'll finally get the money we need to rebuild on safer equipment.

Trouble gets himself a salad and some water and stands awkwardly as he looks around for a place to sit. I catch his eye with a wave, and he comes to take the place opposite me.

"Good afternoon, Commander," I greet him, way too formally to be serious. He gives me a long look, and sighs.

"Hello, Lieutenant."

"Long day?" I ask. His purple eyes dart around the room, stopping only briefly to look at his officers enjoying their lunch. One thing in Haven has been the same, even since the Koboi thing – the chow is great. They like to keep us healthy and energized. I hear that up on the surface schools, military, and offices have some pretty terrible food. Not true in the Lower Elements.

Eventually he settles, after looking over his shoulder again. I know he likes to sit with his back to the wall normally, and it's bugging him that he isn't. Even as I have the thought, he turns to sit sideways, leaning against the wall, and picks up his fork. "Long few weeks," he sighs, and I can tell he wants to shovel it all down as fast as he can and get back to work.

"You wanna talk?" I offer, grabbing my veggie burger and taking a slow bite. It has the intended effect; watching me, Trouble begins to eat slowly.

"Not really," he answers. But after a few minutes, he swallows a lump of lettuce and talks. "You've seen what it's like out there. Houses destroyed, businesses, loved ones gone." I nod. We've all seen it. And I know what a lot of people don't – that not only is the commander's baby brother gone, so is his mother. "Half the people out there blame me, Commander Kelp of the LEP. The other half look to me for help." He gives a harsh laugh. "Right, because I'm such a big help."

I'm confused, and I tell him as much. He's been spending all his time working for the People, even since long before this whole mess. He's never at home, always out in the city removing wreckage from this, rebuilding that, cooking for this orphanage, cleaning for that small business.

He sighs again. "These people want emotional support. They want me to tell them that it will be all right. But how do I do that, when I'm not sure it's true?"

"Trouble, look at the city now." He closes his eyes, and I know he's picturing the view from his office. It's no longer the office Commander Root used to use, right in the middle of the building – he said the memories were too painful, and had moved to one a little smaller, much more isolated, with a great view of the city. "Then think back to what it looked like before." There's a grimace on his face as he thinks about the huge differences between what Haven once was and what it's become. "Okay, now, right after." There's no need to tell him after what, and I can see the realization hit him. "Yeah, we're in bad shape. But it's been six weeks, and look where we've gotten."

"Maybe you're right," he admits, but I can tell he's reluctant to say it. That's Trouble for you.

We continue to eat in silence for a while, but eventually I come to notice that something else it bothering him. I'm not sure if I should ask. Maybe it's nothing. Or at least, nothing he'll share with me, which means that it's pretty important.

Maybe he's changing, because there have been maybe five minutes of silence between us when he looks up at me and says, "Lili cheated on me."

I can't say I'm surprised, and he knows it. Me, Short, Vein, we all told him there was no future there. He even admitted that we were probably right. But he couldn't help it. He saw something in her, the rest of us still aren't sure what, and he went for it. I think what he said was 'The heart wants what it wants' or something. And he's right, of course. But we tried to convince him to leave her out of his life, and he didn't. And now it was coming back to bite him.

"I'm sorry, man."

He shook his head. "I should've expected it. It's been happening for about… five or six weeks." Since the Koboi incident. Before he tells me, I know who with. "Dearth, the young guy who was just appointed to the Council." Several Councilmen had been killed either in the collapses, or from injuries sustained during them. Dearth was a young, attractive elf who had been appointed shortly after Lope was killed when his apartment came crashing down around him. Lili had always loved power, and if there was an eligible bachelor on the Council, that trumped Commander of the LEP.

Trouble picked at his salad and sighed. "I went home last night." I could see where this was going.

"Not if you don't want to talk about it," I warned him quickly. "It's not my business." And I'll listen if he wants me to, needs me to, but I don't want to.

He seems to understand this, and I feel awful as he stands up, nodding. "Thanks for talking to me," he says as he grabs his tray and walks off. I look down at my veggie burger, but not fast enough to miss his heartbroken expression as he stares at someone a few tables over, the real reason he kept glancing over his shoulder.


End file.
